The Fiction of Douglas Lain
Music Lessons
forthcoming an excerpt:
Transcript from Psychiatric Session, 11/2/98, Dr. William Howser:
Q: Tell me about the sound.
A: I've given you the wrong impression. It wasn't a sound. It was more of a concept. I heard it inside my head. I didn't really hear it, but I thought it.
Q: How old were you?
A: I guess I was about four—three or four years old. I saw the gorilla, no, the man in the gorilla costume. He was standing in the doorway.
Q: And he made this sound?
A: No, he just stood there looking menacing; there was this gorilla man in the doorway, and there was fog throughout my room—I don't know, maybe I had a cold and the humidifier was on.
Q: You were afraid.
A: Yes. I pulled the sheets up over my head; I tried to go back to sleep and then wake up again. You know the trick? It was like, "This is a dream, I'll close my eyes and then when I open them the gorilla man will be gone and I can go tell my parents that I had a bad dream." So I pulled the sheet over my head and I closed my eyes.
Q: And when you looked out from under the sheet?
A: He was still there, of course, only now he was in the room with me. And the smoke, the steam from the humidifier, was everywhere. I'd been holding my breath, and when I looked up again and saw him standing at the foot of my bed I let out a gasp and tried to scream.
Q: Did your parents come to you then?
A: No. I tried to scream, but I couldn't do it. I opened my mouth to scream, but instead of sound this bubble came out of my mouth. I screamed and screamed, and when there should have been noise there was only this inflating bubble. And then it popped.
Q: It popped.
A: And that's when I heard the noise. Not the screaming noise, but the sound I was telling you about before.
Q: The sound you say had such a big influence on your
music. The sound that wasn't a sound.
A: It was just an idea really. It was what you'd hear if you could hear between the notes.
Q: Silence?
A: No. Something. A sort of deep hum. I got close to it with my tape music.
Q: Why did you think of this today. Last week we were talking about your mother's illness, and today you tell me about this sound. How do you think these two things relate?
A: I saw him again.
Q: Who did you see?
A: The man in the gorilla suit. I saw him when I was in Pittsburgh on Friday.